Latest / The Daily Word / October 3 – What’s in Your Hands?
Transcript
- Cory: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good wee hours of the night, whenever you are joining us. Welcome to the Daily Word Podcast for Lake Shore Christian Fellowship. My name is Corey Barnes and is my privilege to serve as our Cotapha Campus pastor. Today is October 3rd, which means the New Testament portion of our life journal Bible reading plan brings us to Luke chapter 16, and you know it's gonna be a good day when your Bible reading includes red. Letters. Come on, somebody. But before we get to the main thought for today, here is a freebie. Did you notice how Jesus ends this chapter? In verse 31, he says, If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead. Ooh, talk about some foreshadowing for what is to come after Jesus himself rises from the dead, and people don't listen to him, even the sons of Abraham, too hard-hearted to believe in. Their Messiah. Anyway, that one's just a little freebie, but what I really want to talk about today is a theme that runs throughout Luke sixteen. And that's what we do with the resources that have been placed in our hands. You see it in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, but you especially see it in the parable Jesus tells at the beginning of the chapter about the shrewd manager. See there's this wealthy man who has a steward working for him. A steward is somebody who has been entrusted with someone else's resources. That's that's important. The steward has access to to the master's wealth. He can make decisions about it. He can conduct business with it. He can sign the checks for his master but ultimately none of it actually belongs to him. Well the master discovers or decides That this steward hasn't been doing a particularly good job, so he essentially tells him, Go get your affairs in order because you're fired. Now, this steward is thinking, Well, what am I gonna do? I'm a pencil pusher, I'm not strong enough for manual labor and I'm I'm too proud to beg. So before he loses access to his position, I guess his master maybe gave him a two week's notice or something like that, he starts using his master's accounts to prepare for his own future. He goes to the people. Who have loans from his master, and he starts renegotiating their debts for him. He reduces what they owe him so that once he loses his job, those people will remember what he did for them and hopefully, hopefully take care of him. Now, Jesus is not telling us to imitate this guy's dishonesty. No, the point here is that this man understood something. He knew how to use what was presently in his hands with his future in mind. He knew how to bring himself what he desired in the future. And Jesus essentially says, even Worldly people understand how to do that. They understand how to leverage worldly resources to accomplish what matters to them, which is often just the gratification of their own desires to bring themselves pleasure. But then Jesus spells out the moral of the story for us, how this applies to us, so that we don't have to guess what he wants us to take away from. this story he's telling. He does that in chapters he does that in verses ten through twelve. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? That's the lesson. We are called to be faithful with what has been entrusted to us. See, Jesus describes worldly wealth as very little. And think about that for a moment. Even if you had billions of dollars in the bank, in the scope of eternity, that would still amount to very little compared to the true riches of the kingdom of God. And notice Jesus' language in verse 12: someone else's property. Well that fits perfectly with the picture of a steward. remember a steward could use the master's resources. He could make decisions with them. They were in his hands, but they would never actually belong to him. And as believers, this should change the way we think about everything God has placed in our hands. Ultimately, anything we have access to is the Lord's. We are just the stewards of it. So now let's get to application. What has God put in your hands? Now, yes, this includes money. And I know sometimes people get uncomfortable when pastors start talking about money, but I gotta say, this is red letters. I'm not the one that brought this up. Jesus did. I a and honestly, let me tell you the truth, when I first looked at this chapter, I didn't particularly want to do a devotional about money. But the more I read it this chapter, the more I realized, well, like th th this whole thing's about resources. It's all about money. I guess we're talking about money. Here we go. Because what we do with our resources reveals something about our hearts. Jesus Said elsewhere, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. But I also don't want us to pigeonhole this chapter of what Jesus is saying here, this principle, into being only about money. What has God put in your hands? Maybe you do have financial resources that can be used for the kingdom. Maybe you have time. Time is a beautiful resource. Maybe you have a particular talent or ability, maybe you have. Influence and relationships. Maybe God has placed people in your life that somebody else can never reach. All of those things are resources. And if we really believe that everything we have ultimately belongs to the Lord, then the question isn't simply what do I want to do with what I have? The question becomes, Master, what do you want done with what you have placed in my hands? So ask yourself today, how am I leveraging what God has placed in my hands to advance his kingdom? Am I being faithful with what he has entrusted to me? Am I open-handed with the Lord? Do I really see what I have as yours? Or do I still think of it as mine? See, I think that last one is a really crucial question. Because when we recognize that everything that we have in our hands is his, we recognize that there's a responsibility on our lives to leverage the Master's resources to accomplish the Master's will, which you and I know is to advance the kingdom of God into all the corners of the earth so that people can come to know the name of Jesus. So that's our application. Start Diving into those questions, have a conversation with the Lord. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you for this eye opening moment that we are having. Maybe this is something we've operated our lives on for many years, and this is just an opportunity to reevaluate where we are in this area. Maybe this is our first time hearing some of these thoughts. And I know that can come with some Shock and difficulty. I pray that you would help us with that. Regardless, Lord, I thank you that you have brought things into our hands and you have a purpose for them and you have a purpose for us. I pray that you would give us clear direction and the grace to follow out your leading, Lord. We love you, Jesus, and we thank you for who you are. Amen.